"Communication is to personal health, satisfactory interpersonal relationships, and productivity as breathing is to life. Effective communication can be both taught and learned. We were not born with the way we communicate. We learned it, mostly through modeling, in ways no one even knew or intended." --Virginia Satir (family therapy … [Read more...]
Elements of Effective Communication
If you want to be a more effective communicator, keep your conversations focused on these three elements -- HERE NOW US Conversations containing the opposites of the above elements -- THERE THEN THEM -- will lead to ineffective communication. For instance in a meeting of managers, Ineffective: "They (the testers) didn't test the … [Read more...]
Saying No
One week before the application you have been working on is to be delivered, your client asks you to make a small change to a drop down menu. He knows there isn't time to process the change through change management so he asks you to bypass it. You try to reason with him that a last minute change is a bad idea. But he insists the change is … [Read more...]
Rethinking Employee Rewards 2 of 3
In my first entry on employee rewards, I emphasized the importance of knowing the recipient well enough to reward them with something that is meaningful to them. But there is more to effective reward programs than providing a meaningful award. Let's take a step back and explore answers to the questions: What is the purpose of a reward program? … [Read more...]
Word Choices — We — Part 2
In my first entry about the word "we," I argued using the words "We decided to..." often create ambiguity. I suggested asking yourself several questions to reduce ambiguity either when you hear those words or when you are about to say them. In this entry, I will lay out the case for when using the words "We decided … [Read more...]